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‘Lucky you.’
‘I was simply pointing out that she wouldn’t have done that if her mother was away. She must have spoken to her. Checked that it was convenient.’
‘You might have done that. I would certainly have done that…’
The giant’s mouth once more offered something that might have been a smile, except that this time no hint of amusement reached his eyes. The effect was rather more a lip-curl of contempt than a good-humoured chuckle. She dragged her gaze from his mouth…
‘…but even as a child, Sally—Selina—had a tendency to assume her wish was her mother’s command. She never did learn to ask nicely like everyone else. Perhaps when you look the way she does you don’t have to.’
‘But—’
‘Nevertheless, on this occasion she’s going to have to put her social life on the back burner and for once play at being mother for real.’
‘But—’
But she was speaking to a closed door.
Harry Talbot closed the door and collapsed briefly against it, the sweat trickling down the back of his neck nothing to do with his recent battle with a recalcitrant boiler.
Damn Sally. Damn Jacqui Moore. Damn everyone…
He straightened, took slow, deep, calming breaths and turned to face the door, anticipating further irate jangling on the bell, but whatever game his family thought they were playing, he wasn’t joining in.
Taking care of Sally’s menagerie of rescue animals was a small price to pay for solitude. They didn’t talk. Didn’t ask questions. Didn’t stare at him, wondering if he’d lost his mind.
Maisie was something else.
That woman was something else.
The bell, unexpectedly, remained silent, but he didn’t fall into the trap of believing, hoping, that they had gone. She hadn’t started her car and once she’d phoned her office for instructions he knew that Miss Jacqui Moore—who, in clinging jeans and a skimpy top that clung to curves that Mary Poppins could only dream of, looked nothing like the nannies that had graced his childhood nursery—would be back demanding refuge for her charge and a little civility for herself.
She’d have to make do with one out of two. And that only as a temporary measure.
Meanwhile he wasn’t going to hang around waiting on her convenience. He had a boiler to fix.
Behind her the car door squeaked open and Jacqui turned just in time to see Maisie carefully avoiding a puddle as she eased herself to the ground.
‘Maisie, stay in the car—’ She needed to think. No, she needed to call Vickie. She’d have to get someone out here to take over from her…
‘I have to go to the bathroom,’ the child said. ‘Right now.’
With some children that would mean RIGHT NOW! With others it was more in the nature of an early warning. Although she suspected that Maisie was a child who thought that everything she wanted should be handed to her RIGHT NOW, she was counting on the fact that she wouldn’t wait until the last moment to announce her need for the bathroom. She wouldn’t take the slightest risk of spoiling her pristine appearance.
Or maybe that was simply what she hoped, putting off the evil moment when she’d have to confront the giant again.
She regarded the bell pull with misgivings. Given the choice between giving it another tug and instructing Maisie to cross her legs, she’d have chosen the latter course. Unfortunately this wasn’t about her. She was going to have to be brave. Soon…
‘Just hold on for a second or two, Maisie,’ she instructed, aware that any sign of weakness would be taken advantage of, then, pushing a strand of damp hair off her cheek and shivering a little as the cold mist seeped into her clothes, she dug her mobile out of her bag and punched in the office number. Before she bearded the giant again, she wanted to speak to Vickie and find out what the heck was going on.
‘And I want a drink,’ Maisie added, taking no notice of the instruction to stay put.
‘Please,’ she corrected automatically.
Maisie sighed. ‘Please.’
‘There’s some juice in my bag on the front seat—’
‘A hot drink.’
Little Princess, 2—Dumb Adult yet to score.
But the child had a point. She was beginning to feel the need of a cup of something warming herself. And now the idea had been put into her head, she’d welcome a comfort break, too.
‘Look, just give me a minute, will you? I need to make a phone call and then we’ll sort something out.’
Maisie shrugged and she turned her attention back to the phone.
‘Come on, come on…’ she muttered impatiently, getting clammier and colder by the minute. ‘You really should wait in the car, Maisie; it’s colder up here and your dress will go all limp in this weather,’ she said, appealing to the child’s priorities.
When there was no reply she looked around and was just in time to catch a flash of white frock disappearing around the side of the house.
CHAPTER TWO
‘OH, HECK !’
Jacqui had no choice but to abandon the call and take off after Maisie, vaguely registering a huge paved courtyard with a stable block on the far side as she rounded the back of the house.
She finally caught up with Maisie just as she stepped through the back door, which, despite the weather, was standing wide open.
‘What are you doing?’
‘No one ever uses the front door,’ Maisie said, matter-of-factly.
‘They don’t?’
‘Of course not. I’d have told you if you’d asked me.’
And, completely untouched by the mud that seemed to be clinging liberally to her own shoes, her dress as fresh as it had been when they left the office, Maisie walked into the house as if she owned it.
Jacqui, given no choice in the matter, followed her through an extensive mud room littered with boots, umbrellas and an impressive array of waxed jackets that looked as if they’d been handed down for generations—they probably had—and into a huge farmhouse kitchen warmed by an old-fashioned solid-fuel stove.
There was a large dog basket beside it, companionably shared by a buff-coloured chicken, feathers fluffed up to keep in the heat, and two, or possibly three, silver-tabby cats. They were so entwined—and so alike—that it was impossible to tell. A large, shaggy and depressed-looking hound was lying beside it, drying his muddy paws.
But for the chicken, she might have been tempted to lie down and join him. Instead she turned to Maisie and said, ‘You know, sometimes it’s better not to wait until you’re asked. Just in case the person who should do the asking doesn’t catch on to the fact that there’s a question.’
Jacqui stopped herself. Clearly this was not the kind of conversation that your average nanny had with six-year-olds in their care.
But then she was no longer a nanny.
And Maisie, who was not exactly your average six-year-old, responded with a casual shrug. ‘You didn’t listen when I told you I knew the way,’ she pointed out. ‘I didn’t think you’d listen about the door.’
Why, Jacqui silently appealed to whatever deity was responsible for the welfare of lapsed nannies, was there never a midden handy when you needed one?
‘Come on.’ And, not hanging around to debate the matter, Maisie opened another door, leaving Jacqui with no choice but to abandon the warmth of the kitchen and follow the child into a draughty inner hallway from which an equally draughty staircase—the kind constructed for servants to use in the days when people who lived in houses like this had servants—rose to the next floor. ‘It’s this way.’
‘What is?’ she snapped as the cold emphasised the dampness of her clothes. Then, closing her eyes and reminding herself that Maisie was only six, that she was the adult and needed to get a grip, said, ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap.’
‘S’OK.’
No, it wasn’t. It was just the latest in a long series of mistakes she’d made that day, the biggest of which had been to respond to Vickie’s call. Fooling herself into believing that it would give her a chance to convince the woman that she meant it when she said she was finished as a nanny. She’d broken all the rules and she’d been punished for it, but not as hard as she was punishing herself. And then Vickie had said that she had a package for her and she’d discovered she wasn’t quite as detached, or as strong as she thought.
She took a deep, calming breath, opened her eyes and discovered she’d just made mistake number ump-teen, because while she wasn’t paying attention Maisie had disappeared.
‘Oh, terrific!’
Clearly six months working in an office had dulled her instinct for trouble. Computers didn’t get into mischief, or disappear, the minute you took your eyes off them. She’d lost the precious edge that kept her in control…
Looking around, she had half a dozen doors to choose from and, picking the nearest, she opened it to find a large pantry lined with shelves and stacked with enough of the basic essentials to feed a large family for months. But no Maisie.
As she moved to the next door the phone in her hand began to squawk loudly. She glanced at it and realised that in her mad dash after the runaway princess, she hadn’t stopped to disconnect her call to the office.
She put the phone to her ear and without preamble said, ‘Vickie, you’ve got a problem…’
‘Jacqui? Is that you?’
‘Yes, Vickie, it’s me, Jacqui,’ she confirmed, opening door two on a butler’s pantry. ‘Jacqui,’ she repeated, ‘who you’ve sent on a fool’s errand.’
Door three, slightly ajar, revealed a small and very hard-used sitting room. Two elderly cream Labradors were in possession of the sofa and from the quantity of pale hair clinging to the fabric, considered it their personal property.
‘Relax, boys,’ she said, in response to anxious wags from two tails. Then, returning to her theme, ‘Jacqui,’ she continued, since Vickie had clearly cottoned on to the fact that she was seriously irritated and had decided to let her get it all off her chest in one go without interruption, ‘who will be invoicing you for a new exhaust.’
‘A new exhaust!’
She’d been sure that one would get a reaction.
‘Jacqui, who’s stuck in the middle of nowhere with a precocious six-year-old who not only dresses like a princess, but also thinks she is one…’
At which point she stopped of her own volition as she belatedly realised what was going on.
What a simpleton!
Vickie had said that the new nanny she’d picked for Ms Selina Talbot was on holiday prior to taking up her appointment. Clearly Jacqui was the nanny she’d picked; she just hadn’t told her yet, hoping that she could snare her with her wiles…
What a fool! She’d even remarked on the coincidence and still hadn’t twigged. ‘Take her to her grandmother’s house…’ That was all she’d been asked to do. Not ‘take her to her grandmother’. There never had been a grandmother, not in this hemisphere anyway.
And when—shock, horror—it turned out that there was no sweet and cuddly old lady standing by to offer hearth and home, only a deeply grouchy male who wouldn’t let them past the front door, Vickie was counting on Jacqui’s nurturing back-up system to kick in and take over. Knew she’d abandon her holiday to look after the child until her mother returned. After all, what else could she possibly do?
‘Jacqui? Are you still there.’
‘Oh, yes, I’m still here, but not for much longer. I’ve been a bit slow on the uptake, but you’ve finally been rumbled, Vickie Campbell, and I’m telling you, it won’t work.’
‘What are you talking about?’
She sounded so innocent! As if she really hadn’t a clue…
‘Your devious little plan to get me back on your books, earning you money, darling, that’s what! I won’t do it any more, Vickie. I told you. I can’t—’
‘Jacqui, you seem distraught. Have you had an accident? Is Maisie all right?’
‘Maisie? Excuse me? You’re worried about Maisie?’
Actually, good point. Where was Maisie? She opened another door. This time it was a small, untidy office. A small, untidy, unoccupied office. She wasn’t sure which of a number of feelings claimed priority: gratitude that she had so far avoided the resident ogre, irritation with Maisie for doing a disappearing act or just plain annoyance at herself for being so gullible.
‘I’m worried about both of you,’ Vickie said, reclaiming her attention and settling the matter. This was all her fault.
‘Me too, but mostly I’m worried about missing my flight,’ she said. ‘It was a cheap last-minute deal and I won’t get a refund from the airline. I’m giving you due warning that I’ll be looking to you to make good my losses.’ Then, syrup-sweet, ‘I do hope Ms Selina Talbot will understand why a simple two-hour job has cost her so much.’ Finally, giving up the search and resorting to lung power, she called, ‘Maisie! Where are you?’
‘Jacqui? Have you lost her?’ Vickie was beginning to sound genuinely worried, which was marginally cheering.
‘Only temporarily. I’ll have her safe and sound by the time you arrive to pick her up.’
‘Me? I can’t pick her up, I’ve got a meeting with the bank…’ Then, when Jacqui didn’t fill the silence with reassurance, ‘Where are you, exactly?’
‘Exactly? I’m in the inner hallway at High Tops, Maisie is somewhere at High Tops, too, but exactly where I don’t know. The one person who isn’t at High Tops is Maisie’s grandmother.’
‘I don’t understand. Where is she?’
‘In New Zealand.’
‘What’s she doing in New Zealand, for heaven’s sake?’
‘At a guess I’d say she’s having a holiday…’
‘OK, OK, I’m sorry—’
‘Don’t be sorry. Be here. It’ll take you an hour and a half and if you leave now there’s a chance I’ll make my flight and if that happens I might even forgive you. Eventually.’
‘Jacqui, be reasonable. I can’t leave right now—’
‘I’m afraid you’re going to have to. The clock’s ticking. You’ve just wasted a minute—’
‘Give me ten minutes! I’ll try and get hold of Selina, find out what’s going on.’
‘Nice try, but I’ve got you sussed and I’m telling you now, there is nothing you could say, nothing you could offer that would induce me to accept a post as Maisie Talbot’s nanny.’
‘But—’
‘The ogre was a nice touch, by the way. Where did you find him? No, don’t tell me. He was left over from the local Christmas production of Jack and the Beanstalk. Typecasting. With that scowl he wouldn’t even need make-up.’
